As the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco has awarded over $6 billion in offshore oil and gas contracts in 2025. This figure not only highlights the company's investment in offshore business, but also makes 2025 a year when its long-term agreement contracting market is expected to set a record high.

Looking back to last year, Saudi Aramco canceled several LTA tenders involving the Safaniya oil field due to the Saudi government's suspension of oil production capacity expansion plans. The Safaniya oil field, located in the northern waters of the Persian Gulf, is the world's largest offshore oil field with a daily production capacity of about 1.5 million barrels of conventional crude oil. The previous LTA tenders were planned to focus on upgrading oil drilling platforms, optimizing underwater production systems, and maintaining oil pipelines to further improve the operational efficiency and production stability of the oil field. The cancellation of this tender once attracted the industry's attention to Saudi Aramco's offshore investment pace.

However, based on the actual progress in 2025, Saudi Aramco did not slow down the pace of offshore project promotion. Among the $6 billion offshore contracts that have been finalized, in addition to restarting some key engineering cooperation on the Safaniya oil field, including adding three self-elevating drilling platforms, upgrading eight underwater Christmas trees, and laying a total length of about 200 kilometers of submarine oil pipelines, it also covers the offshore gas field development project in the eastern waters of Jubail. The project will build an offshore natural gas processing platform with a daily processing capacity of 20 million cubic meters, and will also build a supporting submarine gathering and transmission pipeline network and landing terminal. It is planned to be put into production in 2027.

From the perspective of capital investment, these offshore contracts are an important part of Saudi Aramco's total target capital investment of $52 billion to $58 billion in 2025. Despite adjustments to previous capacity expansion plans, the company's investment strategy in the offshore oil and gas sector has not wavered. The relevant person in charge said that offshore business is the core sector for Saudi Aramco to ensure energy supply and improve resource development efficiency. The continuous awarding of contracts will provide diversified cooperation opportunities for LTA contractors, especially in the fields of offshore engineering construction, equipment supply, and operation and maintenance services.

For the regional contracting market, this wave of contract release is undoubtedly a major positive. Currently, there are many local contractors in the Middle East forming consortia with international companies to participate in projects. Among them, the participation of Saudi local enterprises in engineering construction subcontracting, equipment localization supply and other aspects has increased to 45%, far exceeding the previous average level of 30%. This is also highly consistent with the Saudi government's policy direction of promoting the localization of the energy industry.Editor/Huang li Jun